Annual Festival of Outdoor Learning

03 -04 March 2012

2 days of liveliness in the Hope Valley, this annual event run by t the Lindley Trust and the Institute of Outdoor Learning is a good chance to renew old connections, forge a few new ones  and get some juicy new activities to work with

small adventures hidden all over the place...

I'm there on the Saturday with a storywalks workshop - activities to plan and lead your own walk, and a wild books session - techniques for making little books in the field as ways of recoding observations or noting down the wild adventures that are growing out of the spaces you are working in

stories are for everyone...

...we just need ourselves a bit of time

From the Hollowford website:

A Great CPD Opportunity for Outdoor Professionals, Teachers, Youth Workers and Anyone With A General Interest In The Outdoors

Only £70 for the whole weekend - includes 4 workshops, 2 nights accommodation and meals during the the event


We have a great line up of workshops already confirmed

Saturday Workshops

•                Gang Interventions - Julia Wolton

•                Ancient Technologies: Pump & Hand Drills - Dave Watson

•                Story Walks - Gordon MacLellan, Creeping Toad

•                Behavioral Safety. Being thrilled, challenged, inspired and feeling a bit (or a lot) scared AND being safe - Damian Hall

•                Group Dynamics - Dave Baines & Harvey Downey

•                Pottery In The Outdoors - Gill Jones

•                Natural Music Making - Alex Hampson

•                Ancient Technologies: Advanced Shelter Building - Dave Watson

•                Dark Skies - Dave Chalton

•                Wild Books - Gordon MacLellan, Creeping Toad

Sunday Workshops

•                Outdoor Photography - Alex Ekins

•                Earth Walks and creative ways to use them - Sarah Wilks

•                Expanding Your Toolbox. Sharing Ways to Optimize Learning on Personal Development Courses - Kate O'Brien & Elaine Hibbs

•                Philosophy Within The Outdoors - Frag Last

•                Environmental Learning Made Easy - Jim Langley

•                Spirituality & Outdoor Learning - Dan Whittaker LPIOL

•                Trainer In a Rucksack - Sam Moore, Totem Development

•                Ancient Technologies: Pump & Hand Drills - Dave Watson

•                Throwing Arrows, Make and Play - Ian Cresswell

•                Improve Your Forward Paddling - John Handyside

we can grow stories out of all sorts of things...

(and without any apology at all, most of these photos are from warmer climes than the Hope Valley in March but I am sure the excitement will be the same!)

Thurso, Sunday 11th September 2011

After a day of adventures, Thurso is grey and rainy. Empty shops, boarded up, going to auction or just looking abandoned. The options for a tasy meal tonight are diminishing

Driving across an emptied landscape, warm with purple heather and golden green sphagnum in sprawling patches. Warm, maybe, but bleak with it, long shallow sweeps from one horizon to the next, ridges crested with plantations, and those peat-bog lochans that just lie there, caring nothing for burns in or rivers out, just drawing their water from these deep bog-soaks. What hope here for the crannog, sunk now beneath those dark waters? Trout? Eels? Or just the safety or life perched out on those kelpie-dark waves

A long history of human life and abandonment, from crannogs to the sad gable ends of long low houses standing in too many places across the wide mosses, legacies of shifting populations, or shifted moiré forcibly. Are these tumbled remains old enough to have been clearance settlements or do they speak of a longer, more lasting drain of people from the hills. Given the vehicles I tend to drive, I am wondering about breakdowns here. No mobile reception. In 20 miles I’ve seen two other cars. A farmhouse ahead: a sharp modern shape, but the ever-present sheep are loitering in the garden. and through the windows, these rooms are empty too

and I've left my camera leads and card reader at home....photos piling up and no postings! Frustrating! Will add images later

And so this begins!

A day of sunshine and sudden showers and a lively workshop with Early Years teachers and child-minder sin Cheshire. Exploring school grounds in those showers and creating stories as we went, tales of deep sea starfish (in puddles) and bears in houses in the woods......a time of mess, laughter and some rampant silliness. a good way to spend a summer morning

And setting up a new blog this evening! This is a hasty first post....something more coherent will follow soon!